2 pins from perfection

Published 12:00 pm, Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The way Jonathan Rodgers bowled his first two games, he didn't think in game three he'd come within two pins of perfection.

But, almost out of nowhere, the 30-year-old from Plainview turned in a 298 game last Thursday that will net him a much-desired ring from the United States Bowling Congress.

"I just got lucky, I guess," Rodgers said in explaining his turnaround from opening with 177 and 194 games during the Guys Night Out League at South Plains Lanes in Lubbock.

A 1999 graduate of Plainview High School where he played football and ran track, Rodgers has been bowling the last six years. Before Thursday, his previous best score was "a 260 or 270, I'm not sure." That came a couple of years ago at now shuttered Plainview Lanes.

Rodgers said he has bowled nine strikes in a row a couple of times before, so when he bowled 12 straight he was ecstatic.

"I was in a dream world, in a zone," he said.

Rodgers also was a little nervous when he stepped up to deliver his final ball.

"I was so nauseous . . . light-headed," he recalled.

It's a wonder he didn't throw a gutter ball.

"Whenever I went to release it, I didn't put the regular speed on it and it came up high, so I was lucky it didn't split."

Rodgers, who left the 6 and 10 pins standing, said he wasn't all that disappointed he didn't get a perfect game.

"I was just glad one more pin fell," giving him a 298. Had only seven pins gone down, Rodgers would have received a plaque for 11 strikes in a row, but no ring.

"It was just insane," he said.

Rodgers, who works as a pressman at the Herald, is what's called a back-up bowler. That means that while Rodgers is right-handed, the left-to-right spin he puts on the ball resembles a lefty's throw.

"I just started doing it and stuck with it," he said. "It feels more natural to me."

While not many men are backup bowlers, Rodgers said the technique comes natural for some women as the construction of the female wrist allows for it to rotate clockwise more naturally.

Regardless of how he got the pins to fall, Rodgers, who carries a 183 average, was happy about it.

"I'm still very excited," he said Saturday. "It's the first time I ever shot that high."

Despite his excitement, Rodgers found a flaw in the evening.

"The sad part is I still didn't even beat my high series," he said, pointing out that Thursday's 669 series was seven pins short of his all-time high series of 676.